What term is used to describe a patient who has been formally admitted to a hospital?

HEALTH SYSTEM: all the activities whose primary purpose is to promote, restore or maintain health (The World Health Report 2000 – Health systems: improving performance)

DEFINITIONS FROM THE WHO GLOSSARY OF TERMS (available at: http://www.wpro.who.int/chips/chip04/definitions.htm)

Health infrastructure

• General hospital. A hospital that provides a range of different services for patients of various age groups and with varying disease conditions.

• Specialized hospital. A hospital admitting primarily patients suffering from a specific disease or affection of one system, or reserved for the diagnosis and treatment of conditions affecting a specific age group or of a long-term nature.

• District/first-level referral hospital. A hospital at the first referral level that is responsible for a district or a defined geographical area containing a defined population and governed by a politico-administrative organization such as a district health management team. The role of district hospitals in primary health care has been expanded beyond being dominantly curative and rehabilitative to include promotional, preventive, and educational roles as part of a primary health-care approach. The district hospital has the following functions:

  –

  it is an important support for other health services and for health care in general in the district;

  –

  it provides wide-ranging technical and administrative support and education and training for primary health care;

  –

  it provides an effective, affordable health-care service for a defined population, with their full participation, in cooperation with agencies in the district that have similar concerns.

• Primary health-care centre. A centre that provides services which are usually the first point of contact with a health professional. They include services provided by general practitioners, dentists, community nurses, pharmacists and midwives, among others.

Health workforce

• Physicians/doctors. All graduates of any faculty or school of medicine, actually working in the country in any medical field (practice, teaching, administration, research, laboratory, etc.).

• Midwives. All persons who have completed a programme of midwifery education and have acquired the requisite qualifications to be registered and/or legally licensed to practise midwifery, and are actually working in the country. The person may or may not have prior nursing education.

• Nurses. All persons who have completed a programme of basic nursing education and are qualified and registered or authorized to provide responsible and competent service for the promotion of health, prevention of illness, the care of the sick, and rehabilitation, and are actually working in the country.

• Pharmacists. All graduates of any faculty or school of pharmacy, actually working in the country in pharmacies, hospitals, laboratories, industry, etc.

• Dentists. All graduates of any faculty or school of dentistry, odontology or stomatology, actually working in the country in any dental field.

• Other health-care providers (including community health workers). All workers who respond to the national definition of health-care providers and are neither physicians/doctors, midwives, nurses, pharmacists, or dentists.

Inpatient. A person who is formally admitted to a health-care facility and who is discharged after one or more days.

Outpatient. A person who goes to a health-care facility for a consultation, and who leaves the facility within three hours of the start of consultation. An outpatient is not formally admitted to the facility.

DEFINITIONS FROM THE EUROPEAN OBSERVATORY ON HEALTH SYSTEMS AND POLICIES (available at http://www.euro.who.int/observatory/Glossary/TopPage?phrase=D)

Ambulatory care. All types of health services provided to patients who are not confined to an institutional bed as inpatients during the time services are rendered (USAID, 1999). Ambulatory care delivered in institutions that also deliver inpatient care is usually called “outpatient care”. Ambulatory care services are provided in many settings ranging from physicians’ offices to freestanding ambulatory surgical facilities or cardiac catheterization centres. In some applications, the term does not include emergency services provided in tertiary hospitals (USAID, 1999).

Day care. Medical and paramedical services delivered to patients who are formally admitted for diagnosis, treatment or other types of health care with the intention of discharging the patient the same day.

Long-term care. Long-term care encompasses a broad range of help with daily activities that chronically disabled individuals need for a prolonged period of time. Long-term care is primarily concerned with maintaining or improving the ability of elderly people with disabilities to function as independently as possible for as long as possible; it also encompasses social and environmental needs and is therefore broader than the medical model that dominates acute care; it is primarily low-tech, although it has become more complicated as elderly persons with complex medical needs are discharged to, or remain in, traditional long-term care settings, including their own homes; services and housing are both essential to the development of long-term care policy and systems. Nursing homes, visiting nurses, home intravenous and other services provided to chronically ill or disabled persons.

Social care. Services related to long-term inpatient care plus community care services, such as day care centres and social services for the chronically ill, the elderly and other groups with special needs such as the mentally ill, mentally handicapped, and the physically handicapped. The borderline between health care and social care varies from country to country, especially regarding social services which involve a significant, but not dominant, health-care component such as, for example, long-term care for dependent older people.

What term is used to describe a patient who has not been formally admitted to a health care facility?

What are the 3 types of patient status?

What are the four levels of history type?

What does the level of medical decision making describe?